Twitter trolling. Facebook shaming. Gloves-off warfare on the floor of the presidential debates.

It is an etiquette jungle out there, but not in here. In this multipurpose room at De Portola Middle School in Tierrasanta, manners will be minded and rules will be obeyed. Because Mr. Benjamin is in the house, and incivility is not an option.

Schooling sixth-graders in social graces and ballroom dancing since 1954, Mr. Benjamin’s San Diego Junior Cotillion is a local tradition that is as old-school as handwritten thank-you notes and as current as Snapchat.

Children who learned about the fox trot and proper table settings under the steely eye of the late Donald A. Benjamin are now parents. And their children? They are learning the box step and cellphone manners from Donald Benjamin’s son Peter.

Darcy Rhodes of Tierrasanta was one of those kids, and now she is one of those parents. And as she watched the students assemble in the middle school’s Crespi Hall for the first class of the six-month program, she was very happy to be on the grown-up end of the Mr. Benjamin continuum.

“It was terrifying. This is nowhere near as terrifying,” she said of her time with the elder Benjamin, who was a legendary taskmaster. “I was a super-quiet kid, and it did give me some background on what to expect from social situations and how to have a casual conversation. With these kids, so much of their society is on screen. There is not a lot of social interaction. I think it’s important to practice skills you don’t get to practice a lot.”

Like the surfboard shaper he used to be, Peter Benjamin, 58, approaches the socialization of the preteen masses with a sure, steady hand and a fondness for dude-speak. Like his father before him, he wants young gentlemen to keep their hands out of their pants pockets.

Unlike his father, he is apt to call the the pocket offenders “bud”or “hombre.” (As in, “see your hands in your pockets, bud? They need to be out.”) It is also doubtful that the elder Mr. Benjamin prefaced his explanation of the program’s no-gum rule with the admission that he himself loves gum and buys it in bulk from Costco.

But this is still Mr. Benjamin’s Cotillion. So when the tall, imposingly well-tailored Peter Benjamin took to the floor for last week’s introductory session which was heavy on “rule-setting and light on dancing” it was clear that the same standards still apply.

You will not be late for Mr. Benjamin’s. You will dress appropriately for class. Your shoes will be of the non-gym variety and your handshake will be firm. There will be no whispering, no hair-brushing, no avoiding eye contact and no abandoning your partner on the dance floor.

And there will be no negativity. Not here, not ever.

“The No. 1 rule for everybody in my class is that you keep your negative thoughts to yourself. If you are nasty to others, if you say unkind things to people, you and I are going to have trouble,” said Benjamin, who teaches multiple cotillion sessions throughout the county. “If you are disrespectful to someone, I will talk to you about it, and you will get one more chance. If I talk to you twice, you’re out. Adios. Everybody got that?”

The students nodded. The parents nodded. Everybody’s got that.

The other thing to remember about Mr. Benjamin’s Cotillion is that the dancing is not nearly as important as what you learn while you are dancing. “Don’t worry about your feet,” he likes to say. “I don’t care about your feet.”

What he cares about is that you learn how to treat your fellow humans with kindness and respect. Benjamin’s no-nonsense manner and no-exceptions rule book make civil interaction seem less like a mysterious code that needs to be cracked and more like a useful life skill that can be learned with practice. Like kicking a ball or microwaving Hot Pockets without blowing anything up.

This is how you will approach your dance partner. (“You will walk briskly and confidently to get a partner.”) This is what you will say when you ask your partner to dance. (“May I please have this dance?”) This is what you will say when you are asked to dance. (“Yes, thank you.”) You will introduce yourself and you will remember your partner’s name when they introduce themselves. In future classes you will learn how to keep the conversation ball rolling. For now, aim for not looking at the floor.

Because this is 2016, sometimes the gentlemen do the asking and sometimes the ladies have the honor. And because Mr. Benjamin does not live in a societal vacuum, he makes a point of reminding his students that what applies in class does not always apply in real life.

“In the real world ladies, you don’t have to say, ‘Yes, thank you.’ I am not teaching anyone here to be a pushover,” said Benjamin, who has a son in college. “In the real world, take care of yourself and trust your instincts.”

For a brief hopeful moment, it looked like Mr. Benjamin’s first-night reading of the rules would leave no time for dancing. Then came word from the man himself that there was time for one dance.

A ripple of nervous energy surged through the room in an electrified wave strong enough to jolt you back to your own adolescence. The boys side of the room was a sea of startled faces. On the girls side, some of the shorter ladies tried to hide behind the taller ones.

Resistance was futile. With some firm prodding (“Gentlemen, go get a partner now. You should be moving.”) and quick reminders (“Look at your partner. Human contact.”), Benjamin led his students through their first dance. Feet shuffled gamely through the unfamiliar box step. Conversations were attempted. No one was stranded on the sidelines or marooned on the dance floor.

The students may have been unfamiliar with the choreography, but the two sides knew where they needed to end up. In the middle, looking their partner in the eye.

And if you are wondering how to keep impressionable young people safe within the Civility Zone while some of our nation’s most high-profile grown-ups are going wildly astray, Mr. Benjamin has some calming post-presidential debate words for you.

“This is a relatively new phenomenon, and for right now, I haven’t noticed that the kids are affected,” Benjamin said by phone the day after the second debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. “If they did ask me about it, I would tell them, ‘Be responsible for your own actions. Don’t be so easily influenced by the actions of others. Be your own person. Make your own decisions and be the person you feel best represents you.”

Copyright © 2016, The San Diego Union-Tribune